Historic Boyhoods

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The father spoke with truth. The boy handled his small craft with such skill that he soon had her alongside the wharf. As soon as John Paul had landed Mr. Younger stepped up to the father and asked to be introduced to the son. Then the ship-owner told him how much he had admired his seamanship, and asked if he would care to sail as master's apprentice in a new vessel he owned, which was fitting out for a voyage to Virginia and the West Indies. The boy's eyes danced with delight; he begged his father to let him go, and finally Mr. Paul consented. The twelve-year-old boy had won his wish to go to sea.

A few days later the brig Friendship sailed from Whitehaven, with small John Paul on board, and after a slow voyage which lasted thirty-two days dropped anchor in the Rappahannock River of Virginia.

The life of a colonial trader was very pleasant in 1760. The sailing-vessels usually made a triangular voyage, taking some six months to go from England to the colonies, then to the West Indies, and so east again. About three of the six months were spent at the small settlements on shore, discharging goods from England, taking on board cotton and tobacco, and bartering with the merchants.

The Virginians, who lived on their great plantations with many servants, were the most hospitable people in the world, always eager to entertain a stranger, and the English sailors were given the freedom of the shore. The Friendship anchored a short distance down the river from where John Paul's older brother lived, and the boy immediately went to see him and stayed as his guest for some time.

This brother William had been adopted by a wealthy planter named Jones, and the latter was delighted with the young John Paul, and tried to get him to leave the sailor's life and settle on the Rappahannock. But much as John liked the easy life of the plantation, the fine riding horses, the wide fields and splendid rivers, the call of the sea was dearer to him, and when the Friendship dropped down the Rappahannock bound for Tobago and the Barbadoes he was on board of her.

Those were adventurous days for sailors and merchants. Money was to be made in many ways, and consciences were not overcareful as to the ways. The prosperous traders of Virginia did not mind taking an interest in some ocean rover bound on pirate's business, or in the more lawful slave-trade with the west coast of Africa. For a time, however, young John Paul sailed for Mr. Younger, and was finally paid by being given a one-sixth interest in a ship called King George's Packet.

The boy was now first mate, and trade with England being dull, he and the captain decided to try the slave-trade. For two years they made prosperous voyages between Jamaica and the coast of Guinea, helping to found the fortunes of some of the best known families of America by importing slaves.

After a year, however, John Paul tired of the business, and sold his share of the ship to the captain for about one thousand guineas. He was not yet twenty-one, but his seafaring life had already made him fairly well-to-do. He planned to go home and see his family in Scotland, and took passage in the brig John o' Gaunt.

Life on shipboard was full of perils then, and very soon after the brig had cleared the Windward Islands the terrible scourge of yellow fever was found to be on the vessel. Within a few days the captain, the mate, and all of the crew but five had died of the disease. John Paul was fully exposed to it, but he and the five men escaped it. He was the only one of those left who knew anything about navigation, so he took command, and after a stormy passage, with a crew much too small to handle the brig, he managed to bring her safely to Whitehaven with all her cargo. He handled her as skilfully as he had the small yawl in Solway Firth.

The owners of the John o' Gaunt were delighted and gave John Paul and his five sailors the ten per cent. share of the cargo which the salvage laws entitled them to. In addition they offered him the command of a splendid full-rigged new merchantman which was to sail between England and America, and a tenth share of all profits. It was a very fine offer to a man who had barely come of age, but the youth had shown that he had few equals as a mariner.